I'd imagine it's due to the fact it has 2.5 million subs and arguably the easiest subreddit to get to the front page. I think he's playing it smart in trying to broaden the visibility and awareness of this patriot.

I don't know about all the other people on here, but I personally don't think it was necessary for you to create a new account, I don't care myself if you get karma from it. But you did, so you'll get it on this account.

I understand your point of view, and it was a good point. I was just saying it's really hard to miss his name currently since it's the leading topics in 4 major subreddits. Those of course being: /r/politics, /r/worldnews, /r/news, and /r/technology.

This man will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers; he should be remembered for his courageous actions. This is one of the most popular subreddits, by the end of the end of the day, a lot of reddit will have seen it. If OP wanted to spread awareness then he made a pretty good choice submitting it here.

He is the whistleblower behind the NSA leaks. He is a courageous man who risked it all to share the truth with the public.

Documents obtained by Guardian show the NSA conducts dragnet collection and storage of Americans' phone records; exploits data from the world's largest Internet companies with their apparent co-operation; and cases potential targets overseas for pre-emptive cyber-attacks. Further documents show the agency, using a system called Boundless Informant, counts and geographically locates the data it collects globally.

Edit: In addition, he's made it very clear the does not wish to remain anonymous. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.

Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."

Idolizing him this way isn't remembering him for his courage. It's replacing his actions with his person. We shouldn't be thinking, "He's a great guy." Rather, what we should think is, "His actions were great."

Did the same thing. Gave a stern warning to my friends...... as someone who is Canada, told them it doesn't matter that it's a USA thing. All the stuff we use online stored in the USA. Zero f&ks given.... cannot believe it.

it's attitudes like this one that contribute to the failure of change. if everyone believes that they can't make a difference on their own and they don't even try, how can we make a significant impact on the causes we care for?

Unfortunately, you're probably right. People forget and they continue on with their daily lives. But this man could be considered a hero. He possess real courage; not many people in this world would risk it all. I will remember him and I'll make sure my family does too.

I think it's the resignation we all already have that his name will be forgotten that determines this. We, as a generation, tend to forecast pessimistically and resign ourselves to what we have determined will be true, absolving ourselves of responsibility in the matter.

Keep your pessimism to yourself. Every movement and huge change to society started with a handful of dedicated people, and every time there were people like you, doing nothing but trying to piss on them.

because there is a ton of evidence that the pattern of behavior he is exposing (surveillance of innocent people, their communication and connections) leads to tyrannical government abuses. Every time, it's just the nature of power and human beings. We've had several thousand years of governments and experiments to show it. While there are not now a long list of abuses by the US government, we KNOW that governments with this kind of information about everyday people eventually develop policies that abuse the power that comes with this information. It was this very understanding that led us to write the 4th amendment to the Constitution to prevent this kind of eventually tyranny.

All of this was detailed in the FISAAA of 2008. It's completely legal. If you wish it wasn't bring a lawsuit or lobby your congressional representative.

His move was an odd one IMHO, but overall it helps people understand the security policy of the US wrt ~decade old technology. People were used to the 1978 law regarding landlines, but not email, fb, google, etc.

The outrage now is just that some folks are ignorant of the laws of the Murica they claim to love. Personally I'm glad we have this capability. Turnkey totalitarianism doesn't require big data analysis of electronic communication. Since the tools for anonymization and encryption are available to all living in the free world, the fear for freedom point is moot.

Care to link to this evidence of governments and experiments (whatever the hell that means in this context) abusing this power? Not saying there aren't some examples but this thought that collecting big data on phone call activity is akin or will lead to having in home monitoring a la 1984 is alarmist, naive and childish.

Try to understand that there is a benefit and a reason programs like this are put into place.

I understand quite well the reasoning and mentality of the program. It's probably even legal. That doesn't make it right. It's dangerous. It's scary. If you think this is OK, you don't know what's happening.

If this is not already 1984, I don't know what is. There is evidence that the NSA has direct access to servers covering the communications of 100s of millions of people. They unabashedly want full access to all the communication, all the connections, and all the activities of everybody. LAw be damned, policy for the win, they are taking.

This is not how the justice system or how the US government works. It is extremely explicit: the government does not have the right to search you unless there is evidence you are doing crime. If was framed this way intentionally, to prevent exactly what is happening now, and has been for almost a decade.

Dude those first hand accounts don't require any sort of data analysis. Point missed by the vast majority of reddit. Bad things can be done without true intel. You simply lie.

This sort of power is the insight it can bring when there are true crimes and true criminals.

If you want to suppress, oppress or blackmail why go to the trouble to get good intel? Just arrest under false charges. This is a legit program. Period. And oh yeah, it is legal since 2008. What happened during the first seven years of the Bush years is generally seen as illegal. Aka warrantless wiretapping. I bet you were not paying attention then.

I agree that sweeping data collection has the possibility of abuse, but the sheer number of actors here that would have to be aware of it requires some serious conspiracy. People would speak out as soon as the first black helicopter was spotted. Lord knows people jumped on this hyperbolized story like a loose ball at the super bowl.

It's not about likes or comments, it's about the total apathy for things that have real impact on our lives. I could post a picture of my lunch on facebook and have a couple dozen likes, but post anything about how the government is spying on everybody (with Facebook's help) and no one has anything to say - probably too busy posting pictures of their own lunches.

Is it the greater good? Only time will tell. It is scary that we really have no idea how much these activities positively or negatively impact our lives. I mean do we really know life will be better with out them? Are we willing to take that risk? The consequences are not the same anymore. With the increase in global knowledge and access to information really destructive things can be done with relative ease. The grass is always greener maybe? Who knows? But to jump to conclusions is a bit naive.

You know, I posted this story on my facebook newsfeed as well and got similar results. I guess everyone is too busy instagramming pictures of their feet on the beach to give a damn about what's going on in this country lately.

Not to be an asshole, but posting to reddit about this is preaching to the choir, and has pretty much no point. Especially a meme like this. If you're serious about it being a big issue (which it is), you should be trying harder to get the people who don't care or don't know to pay attention, not bandwagoning.

Unfortunately theres little to no hope for helping this guy. What he did was illegal and he will be made an example of. What he did was right, however. It simply doesnt matter though. I grew up believing in 'Murica but shortly after 9-11 we revealed ourselves to be the nation of superstitious cowards that we have apparently always been

why are all u kids so fucking obsessed with this? People are acting like they didn't already know this was going on. It's so fucking annoying seeing people d-riding this edward snowden guy all over the front page. I guess people just have this tendency to bandwagon all over the same stupid mainstream stories.

I don't use social networks so it's hard to tell what many people are saying about him, if anything. But most newspaper websites i've looked at don't mention him and he was only briefly mentioned on Sky news earlier. So far the only place i see any information on this guy is on here.

Though with my tin foil hat on I do suspect a lot of the mainstream media have had their orders about saying too much.

The article was posted in /r/news, /r/worldnews, /r/politics, and /r/technology hours before you made a meme of it. I think the word is spreading is fine and your meme actually takes away from the seriousness of the situation.

Here is what the linked Quickmeme image says in case the site goes down or you can't reach it:

Title: I posted the article of Edward Snowden on my facebook... not one person commented or liked it. Maybe Reddit will care more about this man's life. The more we talk about him and word spreads, the safer he may be.

Don't want to be that guy, but he didn't do it for the greater good of humanity, he did it because those were his views on the greater good of humanity. I'm sure there are many within, e.g. the NSA, and outside it who think that what he did endangered people more than it liberated them. It's all perspective, and the sooner people realise that, the sooner more people will stop being so fucking dogmatic.

Don't want to be that guy, but he didn't do it for the greater good of humanity, he did it because those were his views on the greater good of humanity.

He's that guy. He acknowledged that he doesn't see himself as a hero, because he was acting in his own self-interest. He didn't want to live in a world with the NSA program, so he leaked all the information.

Anybody who is trying to glorify him -- especially by turning him into a macro -- completely missed the rather blatant points of his statements.

An interesting view to take seriously though most of the information he has brought up as being viewed I don't consider private really - ESP since the patriots act first being passed, who has had really said otherwise? I figured most security/privacy conscious people would have figured to best stay off-the-air in order to feel private at all.

He knew what he was doing and the risks involved. No ones life should be put in harms way, but he willingly put himself in this position. He is already making news headlines, and no amount of word spreading will make him any more safe from the government than he already is.

Ehhhh I find his story kind of stupid, he didn't vote for Obama but didn't release them until after the election? That's strange, if nothing it proves we need more than the two parties we have now and gets a man who lied out of office.

facebook took down my first post about this guy. when I bitched about it and re-posted it to facebook a friend messaged me and said that he noticed NSA posts would pop up on facebook only to be missing maybe a half hour later. Zuckerberg is a real piece of shit.

This man is a hero, a real life hero. It takes a massive amount of courage to do what he did . If you are reading this Edward, thank you for standing up for countless strangers.

Edit: I know he did for himself but that doesn't make his actions less heroic or dangerous for his own well-being. For whatever reason he did it, he stood up for those who didn't know the truth and deserved to know.

Last night I posted about how I thought this whole thing was blown out of proportion. Less than 24 hours later I am terrified of where this breach of trust will go. We need to stand up so this man's sacrifice won't be in vain. God bless America and God damn the government for this history making dick-move.

Does the government engineer Hollywood/our society to distract us? No, we have all created this society equally. Does it benefit a government to be able to a lot of controversial shit with little retaliation? Definitely from their point of view.

No single entity can control such a vast, random, and complex world, but everyone can exploit what they are given.

Not you though! Unlike those ignorant sheeple who have the nerve to watch American Idol and see a weekend blockbuster, you read Reddit every day to keep yourself well informed and, most importantly, enlightened by your own intelligence.

Somebody ELI5? If this has been going on for 10-13 years and we have known about it why is it suddenly a big deal now? Nothing has changed imo. I don't or haven't seen any repercussions to anything in my life or in any other instance.

In what way is 'it' illegal? As far as I can tell, these kind of programs are being conducted under a loose interpretation of a law; that law was designed in part to broaden electronic surveillance usage. There are multiple levels of surveillance, with some requiring, in essence, a 'warrant' from a judge working in a court. This court isn't secret, though it's entire caseload must be, because it deals with the means in which the US gathers it's intelligence. Civilian oversight is conducted by all three parts of the government (executive, legislative, and judicial). I fail to see where it's illegal, but perhaps I've missed a key part of the outrage.

I can understand people being upset that this is happening on such a massive scale, and that it seems ripe for abuse, but we've known for a while that this was the intended design of the Patriot Act, have we not? Every time I've ever heard someone in my family (US conservative) say that Obama is destroying freedom, I've....always pointed to the Patriot Act as the most significant assault on freedoms outlined in the Constitution in decades. But the key is this: These programs aren't bad because they're illegal (they're not); they're bad because of the outrageous potential for abuse, the kind of abuse that might not be noticed for a long, long time....AND they're perfectly legal, fully authorized by the Executive and Legislative branches, and vetted fully by the Judicial.

This guy is your typical GED fuckup. I know the type. Probably is incredibly smart, but his problems with authority and inability to commit to anything got him kicked out of school. These problems followed him into adulthood. Trusted in a sensitive job, one day he snapped and turned against his employers. Could have been for a multitude of reasons. People that can't hold jobs tend to find reasons to turn against their bosses or coworkers. They also think the grass is greener on the other side, partly because they're just stupid.

I think his sad comment about China said everything about how uninformed he is. He needs help, majorly.

Congratulations! You are now a full fledged government programmed consumerbot. As George Carlin put it...smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork....but not smart enough to figured how we've all been being screwed over by the government and corporate interests that threw us overboard over 40 years ago.

yeah...hate to say it but there's no way this guy isn't going to get life imprisonment. he'll be tried for treason, and since bradley manning's case wasn't a big enough deterrent, they may feel the need to kill him.

I posted to Facebook about this outrageous surveillance crap, complete with links to news stories. I urged my friends to spread the word about the blatant infringement of our rights. I got a response from ONE PERSON, saying, "Yeah, I'm not surprised." What the hell, people???